


Drink your "loving and appreciating Marinette" juice

by snekwami



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/F, S3 spoilers, lilademption arc heck yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 12:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16764766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snekwami/pseuds/snekwami
Summary: Lila learns to stop lying so much, and Marinette is the motivation.ft. classmates highkey appreciating their wonderful friend Marinette who they love and support





	Drink your "loving and appreciating Marinette" juice

**Author's Note:**

> After watching that trailer and sneak-peeks for Chameleon I am The Salt so uh yeah just take this
> 
> on my tumblr too @snekwami

“Lila? Can I talk to you for a second?”

Marinette watched as Lila tensed up for a second before turning around, an incredibly fake smile plastered on her face. “Of course! What do you want?”

Taking a deep breath, Marinette pushed all anger towards Lila out of her mind. “I know we didn’t exactly get off to the best start, and you probably don’t like me very much. But I’m worried about you.”

The smile fell. “Why?”

How to even begin? She couldn’t tell Lila she was Ladybug, that she had seen the consequences of Lila being driven to villainy by Hawk Moth with her own eyes.

“I know you’re trying very hard to make friends with everyone,” she said carefully, watching as Lila’s eyes narrowed at her, “and I know you want people to like you. But why do you need to lie so much to do it?”

“I’m not a liar!” Lila snapped, immediately on the defensive.

“No – wait! I don’t mean it in a bad way! I mean…”

Ugh, this was going to be impossible. How to even get Lila to listen when there was already such a rift between them?

“I know my classmates very well,” she said. “They’re all really nice. Adrien, too! They’re all so easy to make friends with! You don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not. It’s okay. They’ll accept you. You can be yourself.”

Lila turned away. “I’m already myself.”

“Your _true_ self, Lila.”

“I… I am my true self.”

That pause must have been there for a reason. Marinette pressed on.

“There’s more to being a good friend than just knowing lots of celebrities. Maybe tell our classmates something else about yourself, like your hobbies or interests! They’ll like that too.”

Lila shook her head. “You really don’t know _anything_ , do you?! You’ve been here your whole life! You don’t know what it’s like to have to travel from school to school all the time and never get to know anyone! I can’t just be one of you!”

“You can. We’ve survived akuma attacks together, and now you’re part of the team too. You can be one of us, and you don’t have to make stuff up for it.”

“Why are you even talking to me?!” Lila said suddenly, turning to Marinette with a sharp glare. “You hate me, don’t you? What are you up to?”

Marinette was at a loss for words for several seconds. Why was she even doing this? She could always just pass it off as being the class rep and trying to diffuse any tension within the class, but that wasn’t completely true, nor was it sincere…

“Well the truth is, I wanna be your friend,” she mumbled.

“Um… what?”

Marinette held out her hand. “Lila, I would like to be your friend. I just get the feeling that under that mask you put on, you’re… I don’t know, kind of cool. Or at least, you could be. And I want to get to know the _real_ Lila Rossi. It could be fun.”

Lila glanced down at Marinette’s outstretched hand, brows lowered with suspicion. “What’s the point? Don’t you already have a million friends, like the perfect little class rep you are?”

“I do! Well, I did… though they all seem to have left me for you, so…” She ignored the pang in her chest and put on a bright smile. “So I’ll do the same. Lila, do you want to be friends?”

“How can you just _do_ that?!”

“Do what?”

Tears were starting to run down Lila’s face, to Marinette’s alarm. “I took everything away from you! Adrien, your seat, your friends, everything! How can you just smile and carry on like that? Do you know how many times that’s happened to _me?_ How can you bear it?!”

Slowly, gently, Marinette placed her hand on Lila’s shoulder. “Let’s just put all that in the past…”

“I can’t!” Sobbing, Lila pushed Marinette’s hand away and ran off.

No… not another failed attempt. Should she have apologized? She couldn’t even think what to apologize for. When had she ever done anything wrong to Lila, aside from once as Ladybug? Lila didn’t even know she was Ladybug!

“Tikki, I tried,” Marinette whispered, her courage beginning to fail. “But it didn’t work.”

Tikki popped out of Marinette’s pocket and gently patted her cheek. “You did your best, Marinette. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks…”

-

Lila stormed around her room in a rage, running her fingers through her hair and almost tearing it right out in frustration.

What was this – this – _feeling?!_

She hadn’t felt _guilt_ over her lies in a long, long time. It was something that was so easy to become desensitized to. Lying was second nature to her now, practically a part of who she was. If all those poor saps believed what she told them, why would she burst their bubble? It wasn’t like she was hurting anyone, right?

Well, except that she really was hurting someone with her lies.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Perfect, precious Marinette, the baker girl who was clearly head-over-heels for her Adrien, who blended into any friendship group in the class with absolute ease. The kind of girl that was everything Lila had ever aspired to be – and all without any lying whatsoever!

And now, this Marinette, who she had tried so hard to isolate, in a stubborn, twisted revenge, didn’t turn into a jealousy-fuelled monster like Lila had been expecting. No, she had gulped it all down and asked to be _friends!_

How?!

Lila collapsed onto her bed, lying on her side and hugging her knees to her chest. How dare Marinette make her feel guilty like this?

And how dare that jealousy be getting worse and worse, jealousy that Lila _knew_ was a problem but never cared enough to sort it out? Marinette had said that all her friends abandoned her for Lila – but that wasn’t really true, was it? They were distracted by Lila, like some shiny, flashy new gadget. Within a week they would go back to their good old Marinette once the novelty had worn off and nothing would be different.

It had happened time and time again. Lila would try to prolong her period of popularity, creating greater and greater lies just to keep the attention on her, only for people to catch on and begin rejecting her on principle. Or even worse, just ignoring her entirely. Unamused by her false stories.

It hurt. And it had happened SO. MANY. TIMES.

Was there ever a way to break the cycle?

Well…

This school truly was different. The city was full of akumas, and the class had banded together like no other, in order to keep their own safe. Marinette had invited Lila into their special little group with open arms. No ulterior motives whatsoever.

How must it feel to be like that? That free, that unbound by a self-created web of lies?

Lila hugged her pillow close. Could she ever hug her classmates like this? Or Marinette herself? Would they even accept her?

Maybe… just maybe, they would.

They were nice people, after all. Marinette herself was nice. Adrien was plenty nice. The kids who Lila had never bothered getting to know beyond the superficial, they were nice. She had meant to pull them away from Marinette, and it had worked for now, but she knew in her heart that it was only temporary. When push came to shove, all of them would pick Marinette over her.

Lila had never truly been special to anyone.

Except Hawk Moth, apparently.

Ugh. _Screw_ Hawk Moth.

Lila stood up and tossed the pillow aside, wiping her eyes with her sleeves. No more being Hawk Moth’s stooge, like some antisocial loner. Time to truly become a member of this class.

And for that, she had to start with the _classmates_.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and called up someone who she had never even thought to care about, someone who had the power to help her fix whatever harm she had caused Marinette.

“Hello, Alya? It’s me, Lila. Can I talk to you?...”

-

The next day when Marinette walked into class, she saw Nino sitting beside Adrien. Then did a double-take.

Nino?? Sitting next to Adrien again???

Alya was patting the empty seat next to her and waving. “Hey Marinette! Get over here, girl!”

Confused, Marinette slipped into her old seat beside her. “Um, Alya? What’s going on? I thought Nino sat here!”

Alya leaned over and wrapped Marinette in a hug. “A certain someone convinced me to change my mind. I’m not just gonna abandon my best friend like that, you know! You deserve this seat!”

“Oh! Thank you!”

She gladly hugged Alya back, relief flooding her. Part of the reason she had been so upset was Alya’s reaction to everything – she hadn’t thought her best friend would simply banish her to the back of the classroom like that. Thank goodness things were returning to normal.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Lila slinked into the room and made her way to the very back. Plenty of the classmates were watching in concern. As much as Marinette didn’t want to talk to her, there was an unpleasant twinge in her stomach urging her to do something.

“Um, Lila?”

Lila flinched before turning to face her. Marinette gulped down her nerves.

“You have tinnitus, right? If you want, me and Alya will sit at the back and you can sit here instead, so it’s easier for you to hear in class…”

For a few seconds Lila just stared in surprise. But then she looked down at the floor, an incredibly uncharacteristic look of dejection on her face. “No thanks, Marinette. I don’t have tinnitus anymore actually. Um, it’s healed. Jagged Stone paid for a doctor to… uh… yes. I can sit at the back, it’s fine.”

With that, she turned around and went to sit in her new seat.

That was almost certainly a lie. Marinette guessed that Lila never really had tinnitus in the first place anyway. But in a way, this was… a start?

-

Well, Marinette had her old seat back. Lila had expected to just brush over it and move on, as normal.

But dang, this guilt! This unending, persistent _guilt!_

“Nino, may I ask a favour from you?”

“Sure, dude! What’s up?”

Lila looked around and lowered her voice. “Do you happen to have a playlist of Marinette’s favourite music?”

“Of course. Why, are we throwing her a party or something?”

“Yes.”

“Ooh, nice! Why?”

He seemed so naturally happy, so inquisitive, no acting needed. How were all these classmates so… like that? No wonder they were all so happy all the time – no reason for them to feel guilty at all!

“I can’t tell you yet, it’s a surprise,” Lila said, giving him a wink. “But I suppose you can be the DJ. Skrillex is a bit busy at the moment with… uh…”

The excited look on his face was almost causing her physical pain.

“I mean, I’m joking about Skrillex, I don’t know him,” she said quickly. Ugh, telling the truth was really going to take some getting used to, huh? “But you can definitely be the DJ. I know you’d want to.”

“Nice! Thanks so much, dude!” He held out his hand for a fist bump.

It was so odd. Lila hadn’t lied in that conversation at all. And this guy still wanted a fist bump!

-

Marinette walked into class to see Chloé Bourgeois standing beside her desk, tapping her fingers on it impatiently.

“Ugh, Dupain-Cheng! Do you always have to get into class so late? I have something to talk to you about!”

Marinette’s heart sank. Yes, Chloé could be alright these days, but that tone of voice was rather… harsh.

“What do you want?” she asked, sitting down and putting her bag down beside her.

Chloé tossed a little piece of card onto the table. “You’re invited to a party at my hotel. It’s not my party, by the way, it’s someone else. But they don’t want me to tell you. So I have to give you this lame thing myself.” With that she flounced off.

Marinette picked up the card and had a look at it. It was an invitation for an evening a few days away, and perfectly formatted – in fact, so perfectly formatted that Marinette leaned back to get a look at Max, frowning.

“It’s not my party either by the way!” he called to her, noticing her watching him. “I just made the invites with Markov’s help.”

“Then whose party is it?” she asked.

“Sorry, I’m bound to secrecy. You’ll find out in 3 days, 8 hours and 47 minutes anyway.”

She looked back at the card. There was a little drawing of her on it too, in a very familiar art style.

“Not me either,” Nathaniel said, almost before Marinette had even turned around. “I just drew the thing.”

Marinette stood up, card in hand. “Who is this mystery person?!”

“Marinette, please take a seat, class is about to start!” Ms Bustier said, frowning at her.

Right…

She sat down again, mind working furiously.

-

Her mystery still wasn’t solved when Juleka and Rose linked their arms up with hers, one on each side, and dragged her to their lunch table to sit with them and eagerly discuss how amazing the last batch of Marinette’s macarons had been. Why were they being so weirdly nice to her?

Well, it wasn’t weirdly nice. It was just the usual amount of nice, but it was so strange to experience it when _Lila_ was at this school too, catching everyone’s attention and making them forget all about Marinette. Was that washing off?

Marinette found herself drifting away from the lunch conversation and watching Lila sitting over in the corner, talking to Sabrina. Part of her wondered if Lila had some malicious intent – Sabrina was easy to manipulate, after all. But then again, these past few days Lila hadn’t been up to much at all. Not even fawning over Adrien.

“Hey Marinette? Earth to Marinette?”

Rose’s shrill voice snapped her out of her thoughts with such whiplash she accidentally dropped her fork. “Ah! Yes, sorry! I was just distracted.”

Rose giggled. “Daydreaming over Adrien again?”

“Heh… yeah…”

No, not really. She hadn’t been thinking about Adrien at all, in fact. Someone else had been taking up all her brain waves recently, someone who she should have hated but just simply _couldn’t_.

-

“Hey Lila, come over here for a second!”

She turned to see Kim waving at her from across the room. What did he want now? She found it hard to stand his constant bragging, as hypocritical as that was for her. Surely she couldn’t be the only one to find him at least a little bit annoying.

“What’s going on?” she asked politely, pinning her usual fake smile to her face. Or at least, it was fake for now. Recently, more often than not, it had been sort of genuine. These classmates really _were_ quite nice.

“We’re having a competition!” Kim said, holding up a bunch of milk cartons and beaming at her. “Who can drink the most milk in the space of a minute. Me, Alix, Marinette, Ivan.”

“I did not want to be a part of this,” Ivan grumbled rather quietly, thought he had a slight smirk on his face.

“Well too bad, you lost our last bet, so you have to do it. Anyway Lila – you wanna take part too?”

Lila laughed and flicked her hair. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because you’re good at everything! That’ll make it a proper challenge! None of these chumps here can beat me, so–” He stopped as Alix gave him a kick in the foot.

“I’m sorry,” Lila started, “but I don’t want…”

She trailed off. Of course, she was already used to everyone believing that she truly was good at everything. Worming her way out of having to prove it was second nature to her.

But these kids… they all looked like they were having fun. Mylène was pouring out the milk into glasses, Marinette was setting a timer on her phone, they all seemed so happy to take part, even if they knew only one of them could win.

Lila took a deep breath. “I’m not good at this. Drinking milk fast. I’d lose.”

Oh, it hurt to say, it hurt so much. She never allowed herself to be so honest!

But she noticed Marinette suddenly looking up at her, seemingly stunned.

It sparked a fire within – and a _good_ kind of fire.

Maybe this whole honesty thing really wasn’t so bad after all.

“That’s okay!” Marinette said, having got over her surprise. “I’ll probably lose too. But it’ll be fun to take part. Do you want to?”

Lila looked around at all these warm, welcoming faces, all smiling at her like they truly did accept her, even if she wasn’t as good at everything as she had led them to believe. This darn class! They really were something else, weren’t they?

She let a more genuine smile slip onto her face. “Alright then. I’ll have a go.”

“Nice!”

Marinette stepped forwards, took Lila’s hand, and pulled her over to the table where the milk glasses stood. Lila couldn’t help but stare. Something about Marinette was just so kind, so different, it was no wonder all her classmates loved her so much.

And Lila, too… was beginning to respect her. Yes. That.

She ignored her elevated heartbeat, how warm her fingers were when Marinette let go.

It was in a daze that she came third in the milk-drinking contest. Ivan was the winner, somehow. Perhaps Mylène’s cheering had given him strength – or perhaps his mild rivalry with Kim.

That was the thing, wasn’t it? No one in this class truly hated each other. Even now they all respected Chloé, even leaning more towards the _liking_ side of tolerating. It was so full of love and support and friendship.

Lila couldn’t help it. She really, truly did want to be a part of it.

-

Marinette wanted to smack herself in the face. How typical was it for her to be late to her own party?! Of course, she had been running errands as Ladybug, but still! Her classmates were waiting for her! And this mystery person who had organized the party, they were waiting for her too…

She burst into the hall to see everyone waving at her and welcoming her in, Nino playing her favourite song from the DJ table. What was going on, honestly? Why was everyone being so nice to her?

“Ugh, late again!” Chloé sighed, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, come and sit down over here. Someone wants to make a speech and you’ll have to listen, even if it’s boring.”

She pointed Marinette at one of the seats. Marinette sat down apprehensively, right beside Alya, who gave her a grin.

“Glad you could make it.”

“I know I’m late, I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay! Anyway, you’ll get to find out who organized this party now.”

“Was it you?”

“Nope. Just wait and see!”

Marinette turned towards the centre of the hall. Nino lowered the music volume until it faded out entirely, and everyone’s conversations quickly came to an end.

Into the centre stepped Lila Rossi.

“Hi Marinette,” she said, her charismatic voice wavering a little for once. “And hi everyone else too. Yes, I organized this party to pay thanks to Marinette Dupain-Cheng, for being a wonderful person and classmate.”

Marinette could hardly believe her ears. She had never really heard Lila praise someone who wasn’t herself before. True, she had been a lot more subdued lately, something that Marinette had noticed while keenly watching her from the sidelines, but still…

“And also this party is an apology,” Lila said quickly, looking at the floor now. “When I joined this school I wanted to make friends. But I didn’t do it the right way. I… I lied. A lot. About everything. And I took all Marinette’s friends away from her. I thought she would be mad at me for it. But she wasn’t. Well, maybe she was. But she still tried to make friends with me, even after what I’d done.”

Lila lifted her eyes to look at Marinette, a new vulnerability in them.

“Marinette, I’m… sorry. There, I said it! I’m sorry for doing that to you. And everyone else, I’m sorry for lying to you. Marinette’s the one who should be appreciated, not me. She’s a really special person…”

Was this really happening?

Was Lila _apologizing?_

Marinette barely noticed everyone’s applause, and didn’t even think about everyone swarming around Lila to congratulate her on owning up to what she had done. The only thing she could think about were Lila’s words, running through her head on repeat.

_She’s a really special person._

Was it true? Did Lila really think that of her?

-

Lila ran to the balcony outside just to get some space, some fresh air, some time to herself, anything! She hadn’t meant for her speech to get herself attention. For once in her entire life, that was exactly what she hadn’t wanted! So why did everyone crowd around her and just ruin things like that? This was supposed to be Marinette’s moment, not hers!

Even when trying, she couldn’t help but make everything about herself, could she?

“Lila?”

She jumped. That was Marinette’s voice.

Composing herself, she turned around to see Marinette walking up to her.

“Your classmates and friends,” she said quickly, “they really do care about you, okay? They care so much. I’ve been talking to them this week and they all – they all never shut up about you, they love you lots–”

She stopped abruptly as Marinette stepped forwards, placed a gentle hand on the side of her face, and kissed her cheek.

“Lila, it’s okay,” she whispered. “I know they care. And they care about you too, you know. They really do.”

Lila was too shocked to speak, so she simply nodded. Marinette smiled, softly tracing her thumb across Lila’s cheek.

“And so do I. Thank you for everything you’ve done tonight, and everything you’ve done in this past week. You really have made a difference.”

Now Lila’s eyes were filling up with tears, and she willed them to stop it. Marinette was just so _nice!_

“I’ll try not to lie anymore,” she managed to say.

“I can’t wait to get to know the real Lila. In fact…” Marinette blushed. “Do you, um, want to go get ice cream sometime? Together?”

For everyone Lila had ever known, she was always the one making the first moves. This, this was a change. And it was a nice one.

She nodded. “Yes please, Marinette.”


End file.
